Tag Archives: winner

This past Monday we held a contest to give away a set of Lid Lights, the cool LED helmet lights that could easily save your life. While there were several folks I would have liked to have given the lights to, I finally decided on Sandra (the person behind the A Promise To Dad blog).

Sandra, the latest contest winner

Sandra is actually new to nighttime cycling, but she said that she wants to participate in the Nacho Ride which she describes as “a ride ten miles out-of-town on a gravel rails-to-trails path to a bar that serves cheap Tacos/Nachos which more than 200 cyclists participate in every Tuesday.”

If you read the “About” page on Sandra’s blog you will find out that she started cycling out of a promise made to her father to “get healthy.” Her father had Alzheimer’s disease before he passed away and I certainly can identify with that—we had to put my father into a nursing home last month due to that same horrible disease. In fact, one of the reasons I took up cycling was out of fear that I would develop Alzheimer’s myself. This disease is not hereditary and an article on the Mayo Clinic website claims that “population studies have suggested that exercise which raises your heart rate for at least 30 minutes several times a week can lower your risk of Alzheimer’s.” I love my wife and I do not want her to have to go through what my mother has in the past few years.

I normally send contest winners the actual product I reviewed, but Ed Kovak at Lid Lights has graciously offered to send Sandra a new set of Lid Lights—and she gets to choose the color of the lights! Thank you Ed!

One more note about Lid Lights: The current product is designed to attach to your bicycle helmet, but I really liked the suggestion that Kurt (kurtbredeson) made. He suggested that they also make lights available that would attach to the rear seat stays of your bike—and I think this is an awesome idea!

This past Monday we held a contest to give away a Nite Ize SaddleLight LED Bike Bag to some lucky reader. The winner was determined upon the basis of the comments they left at the bottom of the review—they had to tell me why they needed this saddlebag/light combination and I selected the winner based solely on my incredibly subjective mood at the time. As usual, I had a very difficult time trying to decide who the winner was going to be, but I finally selected AlexP, a bicycle commuter from the Washington, DC area.

Alex, the Nite Ize SaddleLight LED Bike Bag Winner

To keep you from having to read through all the comments left for this contest, I’ll just reprint what Alex wrote: “I commute to work and have a seat post rack to haul everything I use on a daily basis in a set of pannier bags including my repair kit. Lately, I’ve been trailing my 14 month old on the weekend with my wife while she trains with friends for some upcoming centuries. I strip my bike down to the basics so I can try to keep up with everyone while trailing an extra human, so the rack (with my light on it) and panniers go away. I could use a saddle bag for my repair kit…the trailer is stuffed with diapers and Cheerios, both of which, according to my son, seem to be more important to him than a spare tube.”

I think Alex is the first contest winner we’ve had who did not have a cycling or fitness blog, so I wrote to him to get a little background information for this article. He is a former Naval officer (Hooyah) and when he lived in San Diego he used to ride his bike part of the way to work (it’s easy to be an “all seasons cyclist” when you live in an area with only one season). Now that he lives in the Washington, DC area he has turned his 35 minute metro ride into a 40 minute bike ride instead (9 mile each way).

Alex tries to support his wife’s cycling endeavors—she started riding to support autism awareness. His wife is a speech pathologist and her partner is an occupational therapist—they like to use their cycling passion to raise money and awareness for various conditions they work with in their patients. This year they are doing the Bike MS: Ride the Riverside, hosted by the National MS Society (click on the link to make a donation to her team).

Normally the contest winners on this site get the product I reviewed (dust and all). However, after I announced the contest the kind folks at Nite Ize, Inc. volunteered to send the winner a brand-new Nite Ize SaddleLight LED Bike Bag (thanks Julie!).